2 Responses

1. Some general assistance – stress audits
   Hi Sandra
   I’m William Wallace, a stress management consultant. I don’t know of any specific template for the kind of application that you seen to have a need for. I can however give you some general information that may be useful, but not knowing your exact requirements means that I can only be general. Several questions – Is the audit for your own employees regarding stress risks that they may be exposed to, during the office move or focusing on the impact of the new premesis after the move? Are you interested in an audit thats related to the HSE’s stress standards? What do you mean by a template? Is it a form, a qustionairre or a process or a framework for you to consider the stress risks and the exposure factors? Need to know the objectives of the audit to give any more specific help! Several areas to consider – a good simple framework to develop a stress related risk assessment for yourself is the HSE’s Five Steps to risk assessment. A second one is the HSE’s Tackling work-related stres – a managers guide – focusing on the risk factor called ‘Change’ primarily, as your office move is definately a major change. This document also has a risk assessment framework. You may also need the HSE’s Consulting Employees on Health and Safety: A guide to the law, unless your H & S folks have already implemented this type of consultation process. I could also supply you with a list of companies who conduct pre-packaged and custom designed stress related audits / risk assessments if this would help, but they will charge you and in particular if you need a custom designed audit for this application. Best I can do, unless you contact me direct and then I could give some more specific info – at eemail address william@ifconsulting.info and I promise not to try and sell you my services, free information service only. Good luck

2. Stress audit approaches
   There are sytematic stress audits, including the Occupational Stress Indicator (1988) which have norms. The OSI is based on a specific model of stress that would have to suit you and your organisation. I have used it and it has been helpful. Although the psychometric properties are by no means perfect, at least it has received some academic scrutiny. ASE http://www.ase-solutions.co.uk/index.asp are the publishers.